I love that show: “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. It makes a nice title for a blog post with some random photos from our recent family visit to Philly. It was indeed unseasonably warm and sunny while we were there. I had work in DC, but the family came along and the weekend before we visited friends who live outside Philadelphia. We took a “big bus” tour of the city. This is a double-decker bus that you can jump on and off at designated stops. It was great fun. We also visited the “Please Touch” museum for children. Philadelphia is a beautiful city. The flora brought back fond memories of of the three months I lived in Central PA when I was 18 years old and in transit across country. 

 

Tara performing a cartwheel in front of Independence Hall on the lawn of the Liberty Bell.

 

Yes, I made sure he had help.

Roy posted some recent search findings from Google:

After I commented on how I wish I too belonged to a persecuted minority group I did my own investigation into this phenomenon. My findings:

Damn. I would be angry if it weren’t so true. I do love Wayne Brady.

I have a favor to ask. Please donate a couple dollars and a few minutes. If each reader of my blog gives a couple bucks we can fund many of these projects. But let’s start with this one. Let me explain.

Several months ago I attended the Web 2.0 Summit Dinner. Good times. As a door prize, if you will, O’Reilly and Pahlka gave all of us in attendance a $100 gift card to DonorsChoose.org. Here’s the deal:

Here’s how it works: public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit, to violins for a school recital, to microscope slides for a biology class.

Then, you can browse project requests and give any amount to the one that makes your eye twinkle. Once a project reaches its funding goal, we deliver the materials to the school.

You’ll get photos of your project taking place, a thank-you letter from the teacher, and a cost report showing how each dollar was spent. If you give over $100, you’ll also receive hand-written thank-you letters from the students.

At DonorsChoose.org, you can give as little as $1 and get the same level of choice, transparency, and feedback that is traditionally reserved for someone who gives millions. We call it citizen philanthropy.

via DonorsChoose.org

Thanks O’Reilly and Pahlka for turning me onto this. I’ve add this to my list of charities, which include: Plan USA, Kiva.org and EFF. Given the many years I invested in bridging the digital divide in under-served communities in NC and MN with the creation and support of several non-profits (three still in operation) I’m stoked on DonorsChoose for the slant on education. Through DonorsChoose I have donated to a several projects thus far.

Here is a summary of my first two projects:

The teacher letters are awesome!

My most recent project was discovered by my wife, Tara. You can dramatically impact a school and community. It will only take you a couple minutes and a few dollars. There is no minimum donation. As previously mentioned, if every reader of my blog donates a couple bucks we can fund many projects. Please help with this one.

There is a literacy project at C.C. Spaulding in Durham, NC that needs YOUR help. This is one of the at-risk inner city schools where my wife taught and I volunteered. Moreover, I launched a technology community center here, built the network and IT/IS infrastructure. I know first hand how much this population of student needs YOUR help.

Please donate. Even if only a couple dollars. There is no minimum and this will only take a minute and MindTouch will match every dollar donated. Just contact me via email or Twitter and we’ll match.

Thanks!

Ashby has been participating in the Little Rascalz multi-sport class on Tuesdays at Pioneer Park in Mission Hills. This has been wonderful for her. Thus far she has played La Crosse, Baseball, Soccer, Tennis and Field Hockey. 

The above photo is from her last class. Prior to this class starting her and I were participating in our own Greco-Roman wrestling session on the grass. After we had paused, Ashby stumbled into the top of my head when I was looking down. She busted her lip wide open. Blood was everywhere. The other parents didn’t know we had stopped wrestling and it was caused by her stumbling. They only saw her bloody face and tears and had been witness to our shenanigans for the previous 15 minutes. Needless to say, their looks were telling. I felt like a total ass.

Anyway, I got the blooding down to a trickle and offered her to go home. She wasn’t having it. She immediately got out on the field as soon as the coaches started and got down to some field hockey.

Today, when she saw the above photo she said: “I’m holding my lip like that because it still hurt.” She’s such a bad ass. 🙂 And yes, I do recommend Little Rascalz.They have eleven locations in San Diego county.

I lucked into a ticket to Gogol Bordello last week. The show was fantastic.

As previously blogged I recently attended the ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit. The day before the event I had noticed the Pogues are playing at the House of Blues in San Diego on October 19.

I am a big Pogues fan and it has been over a year since I’ve been to any concert. When I looked at ticket prices I learned they are selling for $85 a ticket! I don’t think I have ever spent more than $50 on a concert ticket. Tara encouraged me to go to the show, but there is no way I can bring myself to spend that much for a concert. Especially not for a concert at the House of Blues—the Applebee’s of concert venues.

After deciding not to attend the Pogues show I was pondering how long it has been since I went to a show and how I really wanted to see Gogol Bordello live. In the event you are not familiar with this band, think: Gypsy Punk Rock. Sounds awesome, right? It is.

The next day, while at the aforementioned conference, I bumped into Eric Marcoullier. Eric is one of the guys who built and sold MyBlogLog to Yahoo!. I’m not sure how we first met, but Chad Dickerson, formerly the lead of Yahoo! Developer and the current CTO of Etsy.com, is a mutual friend and I believe Chad introduced us a couple years ago or perhaps Chad just said we should meet. I’m not sure.

Eric and I suffer from what I call: cyber familiarity dissonance (CFD). This is when the familiarity with a given person is disproportional online than the familiarity afforded via meat space interactions. Basically, you barely know them, but thanks to social networking and social media tools you feel like you know each other fairly well. It seems my relationships in meat space increasingly suffer from CFD.

While talking, Eric mentioned he was attending Gogol later that night. Having just been thinking the night before about Gogol it seemed a peculiar coincidence. Alas, the event was sold out. 5 minutes after speaking with Eric he returned to inform me he had a ticket. $35. I was in. If I were

The show was fantastic. It was the highest energy concert and best pit I’ve been in for years. I was left of center stage and surging between 3-8 people back. The pit was friendly, but there were plenty of elbows flying, body surfing (which means you have to watch or be kicked in the head) and I experienced a few head-butts. Good times.

Maybe it’s the nature of Gogol or perhaps the changing times, I’m not sure, but there were a surprising number of women in the pit. Is this typical these days?

in closing, if ever you have a chance to attend a Gogol Bordello show you really should jump at the opportunity. 

I was at the superlative ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit earlier this week. I saw a fellow sketching cartoons on a tablet while I was there. Evidently this was Rob Cottingham who was cartoon-blogging the event.

So much was different about this conference. By different I mean positively different. Including the excellent Indian food that was served for lunch. I’m looking forward to the next ReadWriteWeb conference.

Tonight Thunderbird 3b4 spontaneously informed me:

Awww…shucks, thanks guys for looking out.

I’ve been using Thunderbird 3 beta since August. It’s fantastic. Use it. Also, be sure to follow @davidascher and provide him with cheerleading.

Follow @Shaver too while you’re at it. He has a post about this security problem at his blog.